The present invention relates to thermostats having the capability of tracking, recording, and reporting setback information to a remotely located entity.
Thermostats have heretofore received and implemented setbacks of locally programmed setpoints in response to receiving setback information from a remotely located source such as an energy provider. An example of such a thermostat is disclosed in commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/456,355 entitled xe2x80x9cCommunicating Thermostatxe2x80x9d. Thermostats have also heretofore maintained a running total as to the amount of time a thermostat has spent in one or more commanded setbacks. The running total of the amount of time is made available upon request to the energy provider. An example of such a thermostat is disclosed in commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/594,974 entitled xe2x80x9cSetback Reporting Thermostatxe2x80x9d. This latter thermostat while reporting useful information as to the amount of time spent in one or more setbacks does not however provide an indication as to the amount of temperature offset occurring during the various setback periods. This latter information would be useful to an energy provider who could then reward or credit an energy user who saves more energy by implementing setbacks over time at a higher temperature offset than another energy user that was only willing to implement setbacks at lower temperature offsets.
The present invention provides a thermostat with the capability of tracking both the amount of time and temperature offset being implemented during setback modes of operation. The thermostat computes the integral of the implemented temperature offset occurring over the elapsed time in a presently occurring setback mode of operation in response to a request for setback information from a remotely located entity. The computed integral of temperature offset occurring over time is thereafter provided to the remotely located entity which is usually an energy provider seeking an accurate record of temperature offset over time.
The thermostat is also capable in the preferred embodiment of maintaining a running total of computed integrals of temperature offset occurring over time spent in previously implemented setbacks. The running total of such computed integrals of temperature offset occurring over time spent in previously implemented setbacks is preferably summed with the integral of temperature offset occurring over any elapsed time in a presently occurring setback mode of operation before responding to the request from the remotely located entity.
The thermostat also preferably provides the remotely located entity with an option of either clearing or not clearing the running total of computed integrals of temperature offset occurring over time summed with any currently computed integral of temperature offset occurring over time. The thermostat will furthermore compute the integral of temperature offset occurring over any time left in any present setback mode of operation after implementing a requested clearing so as to thereby initiate the computation of a new running total of computed integrals of temperature offset occurring over time spent in setback modes of operation that are implemented after the clearing.